On July 2nd, nearly 2 months after Phoenix lost her right front upper tooth, her left front upper tooth fell out during dinner. She did not want this tooth to come out, but it could no longer hold on! We were very pleased that it wasn't lost or accidentally swallowed! The tooth fairy forgot to come and the next day when the tooth fairy came, Phoenix woke. The took fairy was in a scramble and wasn't able to take the tooth. When asked why the tooth fairy didn't come and then take the tooth we had to explain that things were different during Covid times and that the tooth fairy thought she didn't want to give up the tooth since she didn't want it to come out. Luckily, we found out that the tooth fairy didn't go to Braylin's house the night she lost her second upper front tooth. This was very reassuring to both girls that the tooth fairy was taking extra precautions because of "the virus"!
On the days I work 9+ hours I like to go for a walk after dinner to get some movement. Axel often walks with me. We both enjoy our time together because we don't typically get other one on one time. For a few weeks he kept mentioning the bus stop sign. Finally, we stopped to take a picture so he could blog about this funny sign. He just loves the part that says, "Essential trip?"...."No"...."Go home!"
It is amazing that so much time has gone since I last posted. Time feels like it is going very fast, but when I look at this picture from just a few weeks ago, it seems like this was such a long time ago. This is mostly because the sun flowers are so giant now and two of them have flowered.
Here you an see the sunflower is Rubix size.
This one is "Axel" size.
Here Phoenix is posing in front of all of our little green beans, cucumbers and watermelon. They are now so much bigger.
I think Phoenix made this on the 3rd of July. I loved how she used hearts inside hearts and then put hearts all around the hearts.
Here are two of our pumpkins on July 5th.
Look how big they are now on July 18th!
For Daddy's early birthday present we harvested our first fruits, zucchini.
I then made zucchini boats. He absolutely loved them. The kids, not as much!
Speaking of Daddy's birthday we made him a yummy cookie after a nice swim at the pool to celebrate his 45th birthday. Here is the handsome young man with his 3 kiddos.
Last weekend while I was working all weekend, Daddy took the kids swimming and then to get donuts. Apparently, the typical donut shop we go to was closed, but he found another shop to purchase 6 donuts from. Can you believe they ate almost all 6 in one sitting. Shortly after I took this picture, Rubix said, "Mom, my stomach hurts." I was on a short 10 minute break between presentations. I felt bad, but had to tell him that is why we typically don't eat a lot of sweets all at once.
Here is Phoenix enjoying her donut.
Here is Axel trying to enjoy his donut, but more worried about what happened to the other half of the last donut.
Here is Axel enjoying our fresh zucchini with hummus. The kids and I prefer it in bread or raw, where Daddy loves cooked and grilled zucchini. We have now made it almost every way possible except deep fried. I have 5 more to use in the next few days with half a dozen more growing. It is non stop zucchini at our house.
This is our first watermelon. It is the cutest little thing.
It has now quadrupled in size, although I don't think you get as much appreciation of the size difference from this picture.
Our babysitter who started helping us in June decided to go visit her father and family in Arizona from July 3rd through the 10th. Axel has become our babysitter since she left. I was called back to work two times per week starting that same week so I was gone for nearly 11 hours on Keith's birthday. I asked Axel to help Daddy have the best day possible by keeping the kiddos happy and well behaved. He has done an amazing job over the past 2 weeks. Camryn, got tested for Covid and tested negative, but she has only been back for 8 days. She plans on traveling again this coming weekend, so I think we decided that we are done with hired helped this summer. It was a great month and such a blessing to have her help, but we just feel it is a risk that we don't want to take. Here is an example of the kids playing exceptionally well together. We are so incredibly proud of Axel. He is taking his job seriously and loves the 10 dollars a day he is earning. $100 dollars for an 11 year old in 2 weeks is a lot of money. He already spent $40 on Pokemon cards for the three of them.
The kids continue to take classes over the summer. Phoenix and Rubix love the Friday art class they take. Phoenix also takes a coding class on Fridays and piano lessons on Tuesdays. Axel has coding on Mondays and Math on Wednesdays. Most of their classes are private tutoring which they absolutely love. The one on one attention is fantastic. Rubix still has his phonics, math, story time and worksheets that Challenger has provided. Phoenix also does daily math and the kids are finally reading again. The library opened a month ago for curbside pick up which has been huge for our family. Phoenix has read 10 huge chapter books and Axel has read half a dozen. He really like the Hunger Games. I am trying to get him interested in reading the Maze Runner series, but he decided to start reading the books for his "Tournament of Books" for school.
Today was a big day in the garden. The cucumbers are taking off and we have half a dozen that will be ready in a few days.
Our tomatoes are finally starting to grow too. It seems like it has been forever since we planted them.
Keith loves the garden and he loves to help the bees pollinate. Today he said, "This is a good picture. Get a picture of the pollen on the brush." I dno't think that you can see it, but I tried!
We also harvested our first carrot. We weren't sure if they were ready, but we needed to find out. We all picked what we thought was the biggest carrot and then patiently waited for Daddy to pick it.
It wasn't quite what we expected, but it was cute. The only carrots left at the store were seeds for short and sweet carrots. I looked at the package once we were back inside and they are only suppose to grow to 4 inches long.
As you can see, the one wasn't quite there. It was super delicious though and packed with flavor.
Here is a great picture of the sunflowers today. Today was day 101 since we planted them. Can you believe the difference just a few weeks does? They are all different sizes and all at different stages of the flower cycle. It will be cool to see how it looks once they all flower.
Besides the garden, us no longer having a sitter and the kids swim team winding down, the other big news is Keith and I both got promotions! Keith took his bosses job and his group has now doubled in size! He has 15 direct reports with the possibility of that doubling in size as ADI just bought their biggest competitor Maxim. Once they start to reorganize their power group to incorporate Maxim employees things will change even more. Keith had a killer first week on the job this week and had well over 20 hours of meetings. I am so incredibly proud of him and beyond excited what the future holds. He got his all time dream to no longer work for his boss AND to take her job! I reminded him of how good the Lord's timing is because he got way more than he ever expected!
On my work front, I found out I passed the all day exam I took in March. I passed with flying colors and then finally got my promotion to Clinical Specialist at work. On top of that, I was able to teach all weekend last weekend for the ankle lab for Kaiser's Orthopedic Physical Therapy Residency. It was soooo much fun! I loved every minute of my very long week. I, like Keith, was reminded of God's goodness as everything I set out for has come to fruition. It has truly been God's timing and every door has been opened by Him, and Him alone. It has been beyond cool to see God work in both of our lives, changing us and molding us. He has answered every prayer as it was prayer and trust in Him that got me through the past two years.
I will leave you with this cute picture from today. We will see how well they continue to do with the rest of 2020 looking like it will involve remote learning and continued sheltering in place.
